Do you know what you spend ?

[hotnutts]

My wife thinks I'm some times a skinflint but generally she goes along with my peculiar ways , peculiar to her because I like to get the best value for my Baht and know what I'm spending . This trait I have stems from running several past businesses ventures , where keeping track of your spending was paramount to the ship not sinking . I generally don't like book keeping and accounts but one thing I learnt was it gives you a clearer financial picture of where your are and where you can go. When I arrived in Thailand I decided to start simple accounts just to see my spending pattern and a bit of curiosity thrown in.
 


Well I started to write down in a simple 10 Baht children's school book every thing I spent on a daily basis , including any purchases of things like health insurance etc. That habit has never stopped , it became a ritual that just carried on and now its just normal for us to arrive home from doing the shopping and jot down what has been spent .

Its interesting to see on paper where my money actually goes , and to see over the years how the spending pattern and individual item costs have altered.


Ive talked about my home accounts to many friends and most seem to agree in principal but most would not bother , but there again ive lost count of the number of times where a friend has commented that they are spending too much, or they don't know where their money is going to or they want to cut their spending but don't know where to start or where the problem lies.

So the point I'm getting to is , do you keep track of your spending or do you just not worry . 



 
 



 
 

[JasonB]

I keep track,but it's all in my head.Daily I'll add up what has been spent to ensure things don't out of control,and I have a figure that is what I allow for per month,and another for "unforseeable" expenses.If any of these jump out of line for more then a couple of days I start asking questions.

[Freddy]

Same for me. Keep an eye on things but no records. Generally my wife is pretty good and if anything it's me that over spends. Ground rules were set before I arrived regarding what I will and won't do where family are concerned and I stick to it. A bit off topic but About a month before I moved out permanently my wife was on a video call with her niece. After the call ended she told me that The niece had asked if I could lend her a million THB so that she could pay off her house loan and that she had suggested paying me back 10,000THB a month. After I had explained that this would take 10 years to get the money back and in the meantime the niece would save the interest and we would have no return, the penny dropped. I just don't think that she had thought it through at all but now she gets it. I have no idea what other loan requests have been made since I arrived but they never get as far as me. I give the wife house keeping each month and I don't question what she does with it. There is always food on the table and the electric and water are paid. If she saves some, good for her, if she loans some, up to her. I just take care of the bigger stuff like truck insurance, furniture, unexpected etc........ If to much is spent then it will likely be down to me.

[hotnutts]

When I first met my wife and realized that that we would probably end up getting married I went over what I  considered my ground rules regarding mainly her family and possible money issues . I made plainly clear what I would or would not do . Ive seen and come across so many farangs who on meeting their dream Thai woman , promise them the world and lavish the woman and her family with money and expensive gifts and houses , why because it made them feel good about them selves , why because at the time of the requests for new motorbikes and gold bangles they were considered not too expensive to the farang who was either on the receiving end of a good pension or a well paid job back home . Meet the same farang five years down the road and the dream Thai woman may have turned into a
financial blood sucker and a top candidate for the most evil witch of the year .

My advice , start as you mean to go on